


Dangerous Waters

by sweetcarolanne



Category: Original Work
Genre: Accidents, Boats and Ships, Dreams, Great Lakes Freighters, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Little Mermaid Elements, M/M, Magical Realism, Merpeople, Paranormal Romance, Past Character Death, Presumed Dead, Rescue, Sailors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-09 14:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20996321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/pseuds/sweetcarolanne
Summary: Since childhood, Kyle Patterson has always dreamed of working on one of the mighty "iron boats" of the Great Lakes. But when a fall overboard almost turns his dream into a nightmare, he discovers the truth behind a former crewman's disappearance and the truth about his own nature and desires...





	Dangerous Waters

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my anonymous beta.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Loosely based on a true story of miraculous survival, although all characters in this story are fictional and none are meant to resemble any real person, living or dead. The _Linton S. Carey_ is a completely fictitious ship and is not based on any real Great Lakes freighter.

Kyle blinked several times, pulling the blanket he’d been given tighter around his thin body with his uninjured arm, trying to dry himself and conceal the tattered remains of his clothes. He drew a shuddering breath, slowly becoming aware of the other people in the room who were hovering around him, and managed a smile of thanks and a shake of his head for the woman who was trying to hand him a cup of steaming coffee. It had been her home Kyle had stumbled upon when he had somehow found his way from the waters of the lake to a line of houses on the shore. 

His dark curls were still damp despite the woman’s vigorous application of a towel, and he looked much younger than his twenty-one years as he sat there, trying to make himself comfortable on the over-stuffed couch and wincing at a sudden sharp stab of pain in his shoulder and left arm.

“Can you tell me what happened, son? What’s your name?”

The sheriff’s deputy standing in front of him was a middle-aged man with a kind voice and face, but Kyle still struggled to pull himself out of his daze and string a coherent sentence together. There was no way he was going to be able to tell this man everything that had occurred. All he could summon to his stressed and tired mind were bizarre, disjointed images that, if he tried to describe them, would earn him a one-way ticket to a psychiatric ward.

Eyes like unearthly jewels, reflecting sky and water, and a tail of silver, sleek and shark-like, shimmering with the light of a thousand stars… 

Biting back an agonized cry, Kyle tried to sit up straighter and look the deputy in the eye. The woman’s husband, who had been in the next room phoning for an ambulance, came over to his wife and waited nearby, ever alert lest Kyle should prove to be someone dangerous.

At last Kyle managed to speak, his voice hoarse and strained.

“Kyle… Kyle Patterson. I fell off an ore freighter.”

Amazement replaced gentle concern in the deputy’s eyes.

“The _Linton S. Carey_?” he asked, and Kyle nodded.

“You’re the one the coastguard’s out looking for – I heard there’s a chopper and two boats out there, searching for you. But here you are… how on earth did you get to shore? There’s no way you could have swum that far, especially not with that busted arm.”

Kyle tensed up and gave his head a quick shake. “I… don’t know,” he whispered, fighting a wave of dizziness and another surge of pain.

Captain Johansen would have called the coastguard after a thorough search of the ship when Kyle failed to report for watch. And Kyle supposed, with a sinking heart, that every member of the _Carey’s_ crew would assume he had jumped, just like the man he had been hired to replace. 

I never would, Kyle tried to tell his rescuers and his absent comrades, but the words froze on his lips and he shuddered and coughed, hunkering further down into the soft wool of the blanket. The only place he wanted to be right then was back on the _Carey_ – even after his ordeal he ached to return to the ship as soon as his weakened body healed.

Only when he lay in the ambulance did Kyle let himself begin to remember how he had fallen from the deck into the icy waters of the lake, and the reason he was still alive.

As he fought to make sense of the jumbled puzzle pieces of his thoughts, other vivid memories, like scenes from an old home movie, kept flashing back into Kyle’s fevered brain. He saw himself as a child back in Duluth, watching the iron boats with fascination and dreaming of working on one of them, and remembered the thrill on his tenth birthday of unwrapping and holding in his hands a large and detailed model of the _Linton S. Carey_, which had always been his favorite ship of all. 

“Lovely Lin” was not the largest ore carrier on the Great Lakes, but she was one of the most beloved, with her tight-knit crew and popular captain who ran his ship with a firm but kind hand. Recalling the first time he saw the mighty freighter in port at the age of five or six, classic rock music blaring from her speakers and friendly crewmen waving to the spectators on the dock, and the class trip to visit the docked _Carey_ when he was thirteen where he visibly amused the captain and crew by asking rapid-fire question after question, Kyle almost smiled.

Kyle had been over the moon when he got the chance to join the _Carey’s_ crew, despite the tragic events that had gone before.

I should have known more, learned more, done more to find out about Johnny… his tortured mind kept telling him, even though there was no way he could have done so. 

He must have been distracted on the night he fell, trying to carry out his usual duties with winds that were picking up to gale strength and recurring thoughts of the conversation he’d had with fellow deckhand Wyatt Burke that very morning. Wyatt was the closest friend he’d made on the _Carey_ and the only one who was willing to talk about Kyle’s predecessor, John McCallum. The crew of the _Carey_ were the finest bunch of folks Kyle had ever worked with, but it seemed to be an unspoken rule for most of them that you didn’t talk about Johnny.

“He gave some of us the creeps,” Wyatt had said in low tones. “He was a nice enough guy, but he was kinda weird and didn’t really talk much. And when he did, he’d go on about such crazy things that no one knew whether he was hallucinating or just making shit up. He kept saying, when the wind got rough, that it seemed like someone was calling out to him. From under the water.”

Wyatt had paused, taking a massive gulp from his cup of strong black coffee before adding, "It was the day the Captain told John he absolutely had to go and get help that he... vanished."

Kyle had stared in sheer incredulous shock, and he’d remembered the article he’d read about Johnny’s disappearance, and the last photos of the young man, one taken by his older brother on a family vacation and one where he stood smiling and waving on the _Linton S. Carey’s_ deck before his final doomed voyage.

Ash-blond hair, almost to his shoulders, blowing in the breeze. His body tall and slender like Kyle’s own, and his face beaming bright with hope and excitement. Yet there was something in Johnny’s eyes that made Kyle’s blood run cold… a haunted look that seemed to hint at a sorrow colder and deeper than the lake itself.

Johnny mesmerized Kyle with those eyes, and it bothered him that he couldn’t figure out why.

“They – never found him?” he had asked, and Wyatt had grimaced, dropping his gaze and lowering his voice even more.

“No, they never did… but you know the old saying about this lake.”

By evening, the skies above Kyle were growing darker and the gale-force wind’s bitter chill stung his skin as he tried to banish Wyatt’s disturbing words and the uncanny gaze of John McCallum from his thoughts. He kept his hands busy, yet his mind still wandered and a frown seemed to etch itself into his face while he worked. If anyone noticed, they probably assumed he was worried about the weather like everyone else.

But all he could see, unless he focused hard, were those eyes that seemed to change from green to blue like moving water. Eyes which hinted at a secret that no living soul must ever know. 

Kyle tried to hum a cheerful tune to take his mind off McCallum and the gale, but only one song kept coming to mind, and it was the last song he wanted to think about right then. A song which, he supposed, must be stuck on a loop in the heads of every single person on the ship.

Fierce white-capped waves rose all around the freighter and her hull was bending and flexing from the sheer power of the water’s motion, making the hatches seem to ripple up and down. Kyle gritted his teeth, knowing that this was supposed to happen so the ship didn’t snap in two, but the sight still made his heart hammer and his skin crawl as he strove to make sure that the nearest hatch covers were secure. 

Up ahead, he thought he heard someone yell, “Holy shit!” It was probably another new guy, Ricky Santana, who had most likely never seen anything like this in his whole life. Kyle managed a small grin, and called out, “Hang in there!”

His words were carried away by the screaming wind, and then he actually froze in abject terror.

Kyle couldn’t hear Ricky calling back to him, if Ricky was even around anymore, but above the now deafening howl of the wind, he began to hear a sound he should never have been able to catch above the roaring in his ears.

He was hearing voices. 

Many voices, rising out of the choppy waters like an eerie choir, singing wordless songs that pulled together every melody since time began in unearthly harmony. Voices that, without speaking a single word, seemed to be calling Kyle, beseeching him to join them in the bleakness of their sunken realm.

Something knocked against Kyle’s leg, snapping him out of his funk. He sprang forward, his slim but strong arms reaching to tighten the loose barrels before they could break free and go skidding across the deck. As he started fastening down one barrel, the ship gave a sudden lurch, and he lost his balance, sliding under a railing and plummeting to the icy depths below.

Kyle screamed, but he knew no one could hear him, and no one had seen him fall.

He must have struck his left arm and shoulder on something as he fell, for a searing jolt of pain tore through him and he felt the sickening snap of his own bones. Ice-cold water engulfed his entire body and dragged him under, and the sound of raging waves filled his ears and brain. His lungs burned as he thrashed, helpless against the frigid current, unable to swim or propel himself in any way. He fought with all his might to stay afloat, but soon fatigue and despair, like the towering walls of water, swamped him and he let himself go limp and closed his eyes.

Merciful darkness came fast, swallowing his frantic, unspoken prayers for salvation or swift death.

And then Kyle heard the ethereal voices from the depths again.

Warmth was flooding his chilled limbs, as if something strange and magical was shielding him against the cold, and his head rose above the water. Coughing and spluttering, he blinked rapidly and tried to see where he was, and what was happening. Something solid and strong had encircled his waist, like a life preserver but supple and warm, and he was afloat and being propelled in a direction that he instinctively knew was towards the shore.

It felt exactly as if somebody was carrying him.

Kyle opened his eyes wide, striving to see what was happening, but all he could make out was the darkness all around him. Small flashes of memory, so brief and so impossible that he was convinced he had imagined them, kept flooding into his mind. 

There had been a glimmer of something silver, moving through the raging water with the smooth and graceful motion of a shark. Swifter than lightning, cutting through the water like a knife and glowing brighter than the moon at its largest and fullest…

No way. It was a dream, a nightmare, a hallucination…

Kyle’s vision blurred and he went limp again, blacking out but still clinging to whoever or whatever was holding him up.

He woke to calmer waters and the first light of dawn. Everything was eerily silent, as if the previous night’s gale-force winds had disappeared into nothing, and the water rippled only slightly, almost stilled. A strange warmth cocooned his body, and the sky and lake now glowed with streaks of gold and orange, the impossible hues of a fever dream. 

Where had the frightful weather gone? None of this was natural. None of this should be happening… then he discovered that he was floating in one place, still encircled by what felt like loving arms.

Kyle sensed the presence of something not of this world, and trembled.

This is not possible, Kyle thought. None of this is real… I must be dead.

“You are alive, and safe,” someone seemed to tell him, but he only heard the words inside his head. Long strands of another being’s hair brushed against Kyle’s cheek like a lover’s caress. With several sharp, rough breaths, at last Kyle looked upon his rescuer. 

He saw the face of a creature that should not exist.

A face of otherworldly beauty, delicately featured but definitely masculine. Long ash-blond hair, glossy but not wet at all, hung down around the merman’s slim shoulders and almost touched the surface of the lake. Opalescent eyes, swirling with every known and unknown color of the rainbow and beyond, held Kyle’s gaze with their own, and silver scales shimmered from his smooth chest down to a sleek, pointed tail beneath the now gently rippling waves.

The merman smiled, and kissed Kyle on the lips.

A rush of heat coursed through Kyle’s blood, giving him enough energy to press himself back against the merman, surrendering to the kiss. Whimpering a little as the merman’s tongue ensnared his own, Kyle let himself relax as the merman’s mouth on his, the gentle stroking of the merman’s slim hands down his back, and the writhing and coiling of the merman’s supple tail around his legs renewed his long-lost strength. 

Kyle’s heart was pounding as if he had been reborn, and although his arm still pained him, it was a dull ache that he could push to the back of his mind for a moment. As the merman pulled away at last, Kyle began to breathe hard, bringing huge gulps of air into his lungs. One slender, webbed hand rose from below the lake’s surface and one long forefinger traced the line of a tear down Kyle’s face, and then the merman’s eyes shone with preternatural brightness as he smiled again.

“Thank you,” Kyle managed to gasp out, but before he could say another word, the merman had lightly kissed him once more and disappeared beneath the waves.

Kyle waded till he stood ankle-deep in shallow water, his feet flat on the ground, and looked all around him. He soon caught sight of some houses on the shore within walking distance. Gingerly cradling his broken arm against his body with his good hand, he staggered towards the nearest of the lakeside dwellings and knocked upon the door, the merman’s eyes fixed in his memory like beacons guiding him to safety.

And in his dreams, in the sterile whiteness of the hospital, those haunting, glorious visions of the merman’s jewel-bright gaze stayed with him.

With his arm encased in plaster, and with the comfort of clean sheets and a soft pillow, Kyle could at last drift into the kind of sleep he had craved for so long. He breathed easier now, longing for the time he would be able to stand on the deck of the _Carey_ once again and laugh with his shipmates about the whole bizarre experience.

Of course, there would be one thing he could never tell the guys about. His guardian angel, and the ship’s, the beautiful and awe-inspiring spirit from the cold, vast depths of the lake.

And as Kyle slept, he saw his beloved merman’s face and heard again the haunting voices of the underwater choir all around him.

He and the merman seemed to be floating in a chamber of moving lights. Like stars, strange glowing orbs of gold and magenta and neon blue rose all around the swimmers, who embraced each other and kissed open-mouthed without the slightest need to breathe. Kyle’s bones where whole and unbroken, and he embraced the merman with a passion he had never known before, one even more intense than his lifelong adoration of “Lovely Lin”.

His chest and limbs were bare as he pressed against the merman, and his whole body yearned with the most primal of desires as the merman’s sensual, undulating tail with its shark-fin tips wound around Kyle’s calves and ankles. Its slow, teasing caress was far more exquisite than the touch of human hands, and Kyle’s spine tingled and his heart swelled with love.

The merman’s eyes no longer looked like opals – they were clear and bright, yet solemn, and the all too human sadness in them reminded Kyle of the old photographs he had seen long before he had sailed aboard the _Linton S. Carey_. Eyes that shifted from blue to green and seemed to be brimming with secrets older than time.

“Johnny,” Kyle whispered, his fingers carding through blond hair much longer than in the old pictures, and he saw the wondrous smile of the merman once again.

“Some of us will belong to the lake forever,” he heard the merman’s voice say inside his mind. “You above and I below. Sometimes she takes life, but to you and I she gave it, and she will let me keep you safe for always.”

Kyle moaned aloud and stirred with a strange arousal as the merman’s lips claimed his in another searing kiss.

The unseen choir’s song, once ghastly and bone-chilling, began to echo all around Kyle and the merman, and this time, the merfolk’s song had words. It was a hymn to give Kyle hope and comfort, a song of praise for land and water, for spirit and flesh and blood.

“Through calm and through storm, love is with you; through the surge of dangerous waters, love will guide you, far from peril to the safety of the shore.”

And when Kyle woke, he no longer saw the merman, but felt his presence in the depths of his very soul.


End file.
